Guys, I think I actually might be dead. I am talking to you now as a zombie. There's just no way I could have survived these past two weeks without being some sort of undead creature. It's been hell, and I'm glad that I will hopefully finally be having some proper break this week. I can only hope anyway. Things are going to be quiet at work at least. For once. I seriously feel like all I've been doing last week and this week is working. Work, sleep, work, sleep, work, sleep. Ugh, no rest for the wicked I guess.
Again, as a result, I got no writing done. At all. It's driving crazy that it's been so long since I updated Madness Within and Immortal Bonds. I haven't even been able to edit and upload chapters onto AO3 either, and as for my review streak, well, that ended up failing as well. I feel like such a failure again, on top of all of the other stress and situations I've been having to put up with. Oy vey, I am not having a good time as of late. Everyone seems to want a piece of me, but there just isn't enough of me to go around. So yeah, too much work and stress. Gah!
I was going to talk about it in last week's Pixie's Chronicle, but as you can see, that never ended up happening. Yeah, there's no excuse this time, I just genuinely forgot to write that blog post. My head has just been so full of everything else, especially since I had my RMP exam this week, so I was busy trying to remember everything for that. Then when I did have to small amount of free time, I'd be spending it with my boyfriend since he's obviously going to be my priority.
When I finally remembered, I just ended up shrugging my shoulders, realising that I probably wouldn't have much to write about anyway. Literally all I did was work and that's it. I was covering for three different people, and the business I work for is currently a mess since our regional manager quit out of the blue, and no one seems to know what's going on, on top of getting stressed over the upcoming Christmas period.
Now I understand why I was being pressured so much to take part in manager training. There's literally no staff, and I seem to be the only person who's freely available for everything. But I need some sort of rest too. Luckily I'll hopefully be getting that next week. But anyway, I passed my manager training exam thingy, so I am now officially a key holder. In fact, my manager has been pushing for me to be promoted, which was excellent news. Fingers crossed that I get it, as I've certainly put all the hard work in for it. Normally I'm quite a humble person who never feels entitled to anything, but on this one, I bloody deserve it! Most of the time, I'm doing all of the work of a manager, yet I'm not getting paid for it, nor the recognition. I'm still at the bottom of the pile when it comes to positions and titles and I think after everything I've been doing lately, I deserve some recognition for it.
But I guess I'll just have to see on that one. I think I may have accidentally jeopardised my chances slightly this week thanks to an annoying customer. I had been left alone downstairs when a woman came in with a very thick Chinese accent, and her English was really hard to understand. Like, very very basic level English. We found it difficult communicating with each other, and we were both getting frustrated, and I felt guilty for not being able to help her because I couldn't understand what she was saying. She ended up climbing on top of one of the stools that's for staff only, for obvious health and safety reasons, and I nearly had to manhandle her back down since all she understood was the word 'no' when I was trying to convince her to get down. She finally got the hint though, thank goodness.
She kept pointing to the honey, simply saying "how old?" and I'm like, "how old is what?" There's a billion possible ends to that question. How old is the honey? How old is the jar? What's the expiration date? It got to a point where I thought she was asking how old the flower was that the honey came from. We were going around in circles for about ten minutes. I was feeling super bad because I couldn't understand her, but I was trying my absolute best. I appreciated that she was trying, but she was at the limit of her knowledge, therefore I had no idea how to help her.
In the end, she started repeating the word "adviser" over and over again, so I assumed that she was wanting to speak to my manager. When I asked her this, she said yes, so I buzzed for my manager to come down. I told her that the lady wanted to talk with her and then went on to serve another customer. I eavesdropped on the conversation though, and wouldn't you know it? My manager managed to decode what she was saying straight away! Apparently she was asking how old you have to be in order to be able to use this specific type of honey. *facepalm* To be fair, I probably should have been able to guess that.
So naturally, this makes me look very stupid to my manager. My manager came up to me when she left and asked if I really didn't know the answer to that question, a safety question surrounding honey that was covered in basic training. I explained that I did (struggling to explain myself while I was also trying to serve a customer), but that I just didn't know what question she was asking me in the first place since I couldn't understand her. My manager then asked what I would have done if she wasn't there, which took me off guard, especially since I was in the middle of counting money, something my manager knows I can't be distracted from due to my dyscalculia. This caused my brain to blue screen as I was trapped between two different conversations, making me look even more stupid than I already did.
My manager didn't look too happy with me and started politely scolding me that I need to use more initiative, especially if I was going to be running the place within a few weeks. I tried to explain to her that the lady had kept asking for her, so what exactly what was I supposed to do? My manager said I should have said that my manager was busy and that she wasn't in. So I was stood there thinking, how the hell was I supposed to know that unless I was telepathic? I know my manager hates being called down for stupid reasons, but I felt like I was caught between a rock and a hard place.
Because this scolding happened in front of a customer, it ended up triggering my PTSD. Brilliant. So I spent the rest of the morning walking around with a thousand yard stare and probably ended up creeping people out. I think my manager thought I was sulking or that I was pissed off at her, because she ended up going really quiet with me and stayed out of my way after that. I wasn't. I understood where she was coming from, albeit I wish I'd had a chance to explain myself better, and wished she'd pulled me to one side instead of doing it in front of a customer, thus making me look unreliable. Nope, it was because I had a broken brain, had a flashback and then went brain dead as a result. I'm just glad I finished early that day.
Annoyingly, that wasn't the only time I had gotten into trouble at work this week. A few days before, a customer came up to me and asked me about lavender oil. She explained that she heard it was great for healing scar tissue, which confused me, as I had never heard of that in my entire life. I explained to her that I wasn't familiar with lavender being used that way, and that our lavender products weren't safe to use directly onto the skin as we only sold the pure oil. I asked if maybe she was thinking about arnica, since they do sound pretty similar, and arnica is used on scar tissue, but she had no idea. In the end, she decided to head off to do her research and I thought that was the end of that.
Little did I know that my supervisor had been listening in on the whole thing and scolded me for admitting that I'd never heard of lavender oil being used for scar tissue. I was super confused, but before I could ask, she told me that I had lost us a sale and that I shouldn't do that again in the future. The whole time I was thinking that it was actually company policy to admit to a customer when you don't know something, since their safety always comes first. I wasn't exactly going to agree with her and encourage her to use concentrated lavender oil directly onto her skin, which could result in some nasty burns. I did try to point her in the direction of arnica, but if the customer wants to be absolutely sure, then it's not my fault at the point.
So yeah, that peeved me a bit. I could understand her getting mad at me when I admitted to a customer that charcoal toothpaste was bad for your teeth, therefore putting a crowd of customers off from buying it - even though it's true. But this one had me scratching my head a little bit on how best to go forward. I guess I let my conscience and my morals get in the way of business sometimes, and it got me wondering about where you draw the line. I personally draw the line at encouraging the sale of products that are harmful, such as charcoal toothpaste, but I guess my supervisor has other standards. In the future, I guess I just have to learn to keep my mouth shut or something. Or at least maybe word things in a better way. I'm just not good at speaking and explaining my thoughts. The only time I can is when I'm writing. I guess I'm just not a good capitalist, though I guess I should technically take that as a good thing.
So yeah, getting into trouble at work three times this week sucked. It knocked my confidence a bit, and ultimately was one of the reasons that I've been struggling with my mental health lately. I messed up my medication again, which further didn't help. So I've been feeling a little bit sorry for myself these past couple of days, thus making me even more lazy when it came to writing. The inspiration was there, but once again the motivation just wasn't coming to me.
I have been starting to feel better this weekend though. I managed to get this blog post done today for a start. Tomorrow is going to be my 'review day' where I write up as many episode reviews as possible, and finally have my review of Feast published tomorrow - at least I think that's the next episode on my list anyway. Not to mention I hope to get back to my normal AO3 schedule. On Wednesday I'm hoping to spend the day on Chat Vert, then spend Thursday on Immortal Bonds, and then spend Friday working on Madness Within. One can only hope that's how things pan out anyway.
But I've ranted on for long enough today. I just wanted to give you guys an update on what was going on as I probably seemed to have vanished again. Now I'm off to eat my own body weight in pizza.
Again, as a result, I got no writing done. At all. It's driving crazy that it's been so long since I updated Madness Within and Immortal Bonds. I haven't even been able to edit and upload chapters onto AO3 either, and as for my review streak, well, that ended up failing as well. I feel like such a failure again, on top of all of the other stress and situations I've been having to put up with. Oy vey, I am not having a good time as of late. Everyone seems to want a piece of me, but there just isn't enough of me to go around. So yeah, too much work and stress. Gah!
I was going to talk about it in last week's Pixie's Chronicle, but as you can see, that never ended up happening. Yeah, there's no excuse this time, I just genuinely forgot to write that blog post. My head has just been so full of everything else, especially since I had my RMP exam this week, so I was busy trying to remember everything for that. Then when I did have to small amount of free time, I'd be spending it with my boyfriend since he's obviously going to be my priority.
When I finally remembered, I just ended up shrugging my shoulders, realising that I probably wouldn't have much to write about anyway. Literally all I did was work and that's it. I was covering for three different people, and the business I work for is currently a mess since our regional manager quit out of the blue, and no one seems to know what's going on, on top of getting stressed over the upcoming Christmas period.
Now I understand why I was being pressured so much to take part in manager training. There's literally no staff, and I seem to be the only person who's freely available for everything. But I need some sort of rest too. Luckily I'll hopefully be getting that next week. But anyway, I passed my manager training exam thingy, so I am now officially a key holder. In fact, my manager has been pushing for me to be promoted, which was excellent news. Fingers crossed that I get it, as I've certainly put all the hard work in for it. Normally I'm quite a humble person who never feels entitled to anything, but on this one, I bloody deserve it! Most of the time, I'm doing all of the work of a manager, yet I'm not getting paid for it, nor the recognition. I'm still at the bottom of the pile when it comes to positions and titles and I think after everything I've been doing lately, I deserve some recognition for it.
But I guess I'll just have to see on that one. I think I may have accidentally jeopardised my chances slightly this week thanks to an annoying customer. I had been left alone downstairs when a woman came in with a very thick Chinese accent, and her English was really hard to understand. Like, very very basic level English. We found it difficult communicating with each other, and we were both getting frustrated, and I felt guilty for not being able to help her because I couldn't understand what she was saying. She ended up climbing on top of one of the stools that's for staff only, for obvious health and safety reasons, and I nearly had to manhandle her back down since all she understood was the word 'no' when I was trying to convince her to get down. She finally got the hint though, thank goodness.
She kept pointing to the honey, simply saying "how old?" and I'm like, "how old is what?" There's a billion possible ends to that question. How old is the honey? How old is the jar? What's the expiration date? It got to a point where I thought she was asking how old the flower was that the honey came from. We were going around in circles for about ten minutes. I was feeling super bad because I couldn't understand her, but I was trying my absolute best. I appreciated that she was trying, but she was at the limit of her knowledge, therefore I had no idea how to help her.
In the end, she started repeating the word "adviser" over and over again, so I assumed that she was wanting to speak to my manager. When I asked her this, she said yes, so I buzzed for my manager to come down. I told her that the lady wanted to talk with her and then went on to serve another customer. I eavesdropped on the conversation though, and wouldn't you know it? My manager managed to decode what she was saying straight away! Apparently she was asking how old you have to be in order to be able to use this specific type of honey. *facepalm* To be fair, I probably should have been able to guess that.
So naturally, this makes me look very stupid to my manager. My manager came up to me when she left and asked if I really didn't know the answer to that question, a safety question surrounding honey that was covered in basic training. I explained that I did (struggling to explain myself while I was also trying to serve a customer), but that I just didn't know what question she was asking me in the first place since I couldn't understand her. My manager then asked what I would have done if she wasn't there, which took me off guard, especially since I was in the middle of counting money, something my manager knows I can't be distracted from due to my dyscalculia. This caused my brain to blue screen as I was trapped between two different conversations, making me look even more stupid than I already did.
My manager didn't look too happy with me and started politely scolding me that I need to use more initiative, especially if I was going to be running the place within a few weeks. I tried to explain to her that the lady had kept asking for her, so what exactly what was I supposed to do? My manager said I should have said that my manager was busy and that she wasn't in. So I was stood there thinking, how the hell was I supposed to know that unless I was telepathic? I know my manager hates being called down for stupid reasons, but I felt like I was caught between a rock and a hard place.
Because this scolding happened in front of a customer, it ended up triggering my PTSD. Brilliant. So I spent the rest of the morning walking around with a thousand yard stare and probably ended up creeping people out. I think my manager thought I was sulking or that I was pissed off at her, because she ended up going really quiet with me and stayed out of my way after that. I wasn't. I understood where she was coming from, albeit I wish I'd had a chance to explain myself better, and wished she'd pulled me to one side instead of doing it in front of a customer, thus making me look unreliable. Nope, it was because I had a broken brain, had a flashback and then went brain dead as a result. I'm just glad I finished early that day.
Annoyingly, that wasn't the only time I had gotten into trouble at work this week. A few days before, a customer came up to me and asked me about lavender oil. She explained that she heard it was great for healing scar tissue, which confused me, as I had never heard of that in my entire life. I explained to her that I wasn't familiar with lavender being used that way, and that our lavender products weren't safe to use directly onto the skin as we only sold the pure oil. I asked if maybe she was thinking about arnica, since they do sound pretty similar, and arnica is used on scar tissue, but she had no idea. In the end, she decided to head off to do her research and I thought that was the end of that.
Little did I know that my supervisor had been listening in on the whole thing and scolded me for admitting that I'd never heard of lavender oil being used for scar tissue. I was super confused, but before I could ask, she told me that I had lost us a sale and that I shouldn't do that again in the future. The whole time I was thinking that it was actually company policy to admit to a customer when you don't know something, since their safety always comes first. I wasn't exactly going to agree with her and encourage her to use concentrated lavender oil directly onto her skin, which could result in some nasty burns. I did try to point her in the direction of arnica, but if the customer wants to be absolutely sure, then it's not my fault at the point.
So yeah, that peeved me a bit. I could understand her getting mad at me when I admitted to a customer that charcoal toothpaste was bad for your teeth, therefore putting a crowd of customers off from buying it - even though it's true. But this one had me scratching my head a little bit on how best to go forward. I guess I let my conscience and my morals get in the way of business sometimes, and it got me wondering about where you draw the line. I personally draw the line at encouraging the sale of products that are harmful, such as charcoal toothpaste, but I guess my supervisor has other standards. In the future, I guess I just have to learn to keep my mouth shut or something. Or at least maybe word things in a better way. I'm just not good at speaking and explaining my thoughts. The only time I can is when I'm writing. I guess I'm just not a good capitalist, though I guess I should technically take that as a good thing.
So yeah, getting into trouble at work three times this week sucked. It knocked my confidence a bit, and ultimately was one of the reasons that I've been struggling with my mental health lately. I messed up my medication again, which further didn't help. So I've been feeling a little bit sorry for myself these past couple of days, thus making me even more lazy when it came to writing. The inspiration was there, but once again the motivation just wasn't coming to me.
I have been starting to feel better this weekend though. I managed to get this blog post done today for a start. Tomorrow is going to be my 'review day' where I write up as many episode reviews as possible, and finally have my review of Feast published tomorrow - at least I think that's the next episode on my list anyway. Not to mention I hope to get back to my normal AO3 schedule. On Wednesday I'm hoping to spend the day on Chat Vert, then spend Thursday on Immortal Bonds, and then spend Friday working on Madness Within. One can only hope that's how things pan out anyway.
But I've ranted on for long enough today. I just wanted to give you guys an update on what was going on as I probably seemed to have vanished again. Now I'm off to eat my own body weight in pizza.
Huh I had no idea charcoal toothpaste was bad for you. And good on you for steering the customer away from the lavender oil! What would happen if she suffered chemical burns because you told her it was "safe"? Bet your supervisor wouldn't like dealing with that shitstorm. Honestly you did the right thing.
ReplyDeleteSome people just have a knack for understanding people with few words involved. Others do not. I hope your manager realizes that. I'm pretty good at deciphering what my Spanish coworkers are saying, but if I can't figure it out I ask someone else to interpret. At least you asked for help, and as a result the company didn't lose a sale. Especially since that seems to only be what they care about half the time.
Yeah, charcoal toothpaste is bad for you. It works in that it whitens your teeth, but the way that works is that the charcoal in the toothpaste grinds off a layer of your tooth, resulting in enamel damage. All dentists warn to stay away from it. I have no idea why we sell it.
DeleteProblem was, if I had told her the product was safe to use that way, the trouble it would cause would have fallen back onto me. I would have been the one in serious trouble for endangering her. So yeah, no thank you to that. If my supervisor does that to me again I might just have a quiet word with her, because I'm really not comfortable putting people at risk just for the sake of a sale.
If someone had say a strong Spanish, French or German accent, I would have been able to understand since I speak a little bit of those languages. I do have issues understanding some customers whose languages are more further a field such as Indian or Pakistani. But their English vocabulary is usually a lot better than this lady's once, and since the only word of Mandarin I know is "hello" we were both completely stuck. It doesn't help that I'm slightly hard of hearing either, so that possibly played a part.
Ugh, I know right? I can understand that to a certain extent. As a business, we have to make a profit. But as a health, fitness and wellbeing business, we tred that very fine line of customer safety vs profit. The policy is safety first, but I guess not in a lot of cases.
Man! What a week! I'm so sorry you had to endure that. I don't think your manager/supervisor(s) were at all in the right! First of all, your manager should have 100% pulled you off to the side before talking to you. It's more professional, it's less aggressive, and it is less rude to all involved (if I were the customer and had my transaction interrupted so my cashier could be yelled at, I'd be pissed at the supervisor). The only time intervention like that is called for is if you are CURRENTLY screwing up a sale - like, if you were handing back the wrong change or something - and even then, it should be more of a step-in then a yell-at. As for the Chinese woman, that's just not right! I would have never guessed that she was asking about proper age to take honey! (then again, not being in that profession, I didn't know there WAS an age restriction outside of toddlers, so unless she had a toddler with her I wouldn't have realized that's what she was concerned about). When stuff like that used to happen to me I would just spitfire any and all possible answers I could think of and pantomime like I was trying to catch-up on points in charades. Worst part is, sometimes the person could be speaking perfect English, but in such a thick accent I'm still baffled! It's frustrating, but you had tried before getting help, and then you DID get help when she asked for it. It's so shady that you were supposed to say your manager wasn't available! I mean, it's just straight up shady already to have that be a "policy" but to then make it seem like you should have known that without being informed!? Seriously!?
ReplyDeleteAs for the charcoal thing? eeeeee... that one is tricky. We have always been informed to not "bad mouth" the products, and it IS costing the company money. Maybe figure out a whitening alternative you feel comfortable selling, and leading people towards that instead? Tell them "yes, the charcoal does whiten, however..." and talk about the added benefits of the alternative toothpaste. That way all can end up happy???
That lavender one though... that's rough. How heartless could the supervisor be!? Even if you do become the scapegoat, it doesn't necessarily stop the woman from suing the company for her injuries or at least giving the store a poor review. There could be legal ramifications as well. I just don't understand why THAT interaction was the one where The Bottom Line was priority. Maybe if you had internet access - or suggested to the woman to bring up the info on her phone - it would have shown you putting in effort to confirm or deny the lavender oil claims and kept her in the store to buy? Or you could have found a way to somehow dilute the oil until it's safe???
Regardless, I personally don't see you doing anything reprimandable in any of those scenarios. They could have been "teaching moments" where your superiors calmly and politely talked to you about alternate ways to interact with the customers, but to scold you!? So uncalled for!
Also, as always, we're cool with the stories being a bit delayed. You clearly had a lot going on, and your mental health takes priority.